Images

I have just lost the elevator servo after launch in round 7; thank god for having snap flaps with up and down movement. Landed no damage. But I really really needed the 44+ score I felt capable of with today's prop and the improving air. Damn!!!! I should have redone the elevator servo tray as Joe suggested...Eric, living and learning.

Bunch of pics below. My impressions are as follows. Take them for what they are worth, which is not much, as I just learned of this silliness a month or so ago.

As with any event, nothing happens without the tireless effort of 1 or 2 specific individuals. In this case it was Steve Manganelli, the CD, and his fiancee, Michelle. Steve worked Pylon A and Michelle worked pylon B. Steve also managed all the gas-boxes, Receiver control, lap scoring, timing, normalizing, and everything else. Michelle laid out a considerable table of food for the competitors and helpers on both days. This clearly would NOT happen without these two good folks.

As for the competitors:

Lenny Keer: Marco had an interesting observation today: "Lenny's S**T is set on "KILL". Yes. Yes it was. Lenny's knob was turned up to 11 all weekend. He had one speed: Light Speed. He won 6 out of the 8 rounds, and with 1 throw away round, that's pretty dominant. His plane was FAST and he was ON the pylons. I watched him a couple times during the duration portion, and he's clearly flown TD comps as well. His stuff was reliable and fast. I never saw him cut or score less than 44 legs or get less than 30 on a landing, Soo...GOOD ON YOU LENNY!!!

Steve Neu: Steve is a quiet guy who just calmly, and unobtrusively...KICKS YOUR ASS. The only reason he didn't win is because he didn't need to. The goal here was to be in the top 3 and make the U.S. Team. Oh yeah, and because of Lenny. But I digress. Steve is a very smart guy, and supplies a lot of equipment to the top eschelans of electric competition. This weekend Steve was pushing some major voltage. He's running 10S on some proprietary D.O.D. black ops ESC with a shunt and a logger stolen from San Onofre, spinning homemade twisted hubs made of unobtanium. His plane is fast, and I think he could give Lenny some fits, but Steve seemed to be holding back a little bit, and as noted earlier, Lenny's s**t was set on KILL in every round.

Jeff Keesaman is an interesting guy. He's quiet. He doesn't smile for the camera. He strikes me as a guy with a thousand computations going on in his head at all times. For instance, he was running a little late to the spot landing in round 7, so he hustles it along, does some cost/benefit analysis in his head and decides that he needs to plow his plane into the hard San Diego ground at 30MPH to get a 30pt landing. Anything less could've cost him 3rd place. Soo...good decision. He was consistently fast, and I think he's running the same 5.7 Jiga-Watt setup that Steve is running (but I could be wrong). He flew fast, clean laps, and I never saw him cut. He wasn't quite as quick as Lenny or Steve, but almost. Before they go to Romania next year for the WC, I think Lenny and Steve will have to crack open their secret stash of platinum mojo and sprinkle it on Jeff's plane to help him grow another leg or two.

Kris Duggan will be the alternate in 2012. I did some timing for him during the weekend. He's got a fast setup and turns some good laps, turning in consistent 44's. I'm not really sure what the difference between Kris and Jeff came down to, as Kris had really good scores during the duration and spot landing portions whenever I timed for him. I'm not sure about the other rounds. Perhaps Jeff was getting 45's and 46's when Kris was getting 44's??? On one round, Kris pulled up after the duration, and burned for altitude, using up 0.7 seconds of duration time, which, rounding down, scores as 0 points off your duration. He then managed to find good air and milk it for the full 10 minutes, after which he landed dead in the middle of the 30 circle, with exactly 10.00.00 minutes on the clock, with 0 motor burn. That's what you call a perfect duration and spot. The only way to score better is to run another lap or 2. Or 3.

Eric Weirman. This guy is a little ball of energy. The 4 guys listed above are all quiet and introverted. Eric is the other kind. He walks up, says hello, shakes your hand, then encourages you to go faster, farther, get your personal best. It's impossible not to like this guy. And he's fast. He's got great equipment, but he was the only guy in the top 5 NOT flying the Avionik B08, and I think that may make a difference. Eric is all over the science of F5B, talking about temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, whatever that is (This is Southern California, we don't need no stinking barometers). Eric's a great pilot. He flew consistently good, tight laps, but he got snake-bit in the 7th round when his elevator failed him. Only heroic skills managed to get the plane down without damage, using nothing but flaps for pitch control. And in the 8th round, he needed something nutty like 52 laps, and he has morals and ethics, so he turned down my offer to disconnect his Unilogger. But he did decide to go for broke, and he tried a little secret sauce to get an edge, but the sauce burned his pallet and he ended up spitting it out.

Here's a couple pics.

I also got video of everyone during the distance portions. I didn't video any of the duration part (you can thank me later). And someday, I might figure out how to get video "OUT" of my video camera. And if I do, I will post links to it here. Someday.